The DeBarge family story begins in Detroit, Michigan with their parents Robert Louis DeBarge Sr and Etterlene Abney. Robert, a white Army veteran and Etterlene, a Black homemaker and gospel singer, met when Etterlene was just 17 years old.
The pair, who married in 1953, would go on to have ten children together – Bunny, Bobby, Tommy, Randy, Marty, El, James, Chico, Carol and Darrell. But Etterlene would soon find out that her husband had a dark side.
“He was insanely jealous,” she said in a 2011 interview. “He told me, ‘If any man ever talks to you, let me know.’ He didn’t want me wearing jewelry or wigs or makeup, because he didn’t want me to look pretty.”
